CHAPTER XXV
IN NEW YORK
"That's good," called Rad, as he caught a swift one. "You'll do, Joe."
But only the young pitcher knew what an effort it was going to cost himto stay in that game. And stay he must.
It was time for the Cardinals to take the field. The Phillies were tworuns ahead, and that lead must be cut down, and at least one more tallymade if the game were to be won.
"Can we do it?" thought Joe. He felt the pain in his arm, but he groundhis teeth and muttered: "I'm going to do it!"
The play started off with the new pitcher in the box. The news wentflashing over the telegraph wires from the reporters on the ground tothe various bulletin boards through the country, and to the newspaperoffices. Baseball Joe was pitching for the Cardinals.
But Joe was not thinking of the fame that was his. All he thought of wasthe effort he must make to pitch a winning game.
Fortunately for him three of the weakest batters on the Phillies facedhim that inning. Joe knew it, and so did the catcher, for he did notsignal for the teasing fadeaway, for which Joe was very glad.
Joe tried a couple of practice balls, but he did not slam them in withhis usual force, at which the man in the mask wondered. He had not heardof Joe's lame arm, and he reasoned that his partner was holding back forreasons best known to himself.
"Ball one!" yelled the umpire when Joe had made his first delivery tothe batter. Joe winced, partly with pain, and partly because of thewasted effort that meant so much to him.
"The next one won't be a ball!" he muttered fiercely. He sent in apuzzling curve that enticed the batter.
"Strike one!"
"That's better!" yelled Boswell, from the coaching line. "Serve 'em somemore like that, Joe."
And Joe did. No one but himself knew the effort it cost him, but he kepton when it was agony to deliver the ball. Perhaps he should not havedone it, for he ran the chance of injuring himself for life, and alsoran the chance of losing the game for his team.
But Joe was young--he did not think of those things. He justpitched--not for nothing had he been dubbed "Baseball Joe."
"You're out!" snapped the umpire to the first batter, who turned to thebench with a sickly grin.
Joe faced the next one. To his alarm the catcher signalled for afadeaway. Joe shook his head. He thought he could get away with astraight, swift one.
But when the batter hit it Joe's heart was in his throat until he sawthat it was a foul. By a desperate run Russell caught it. Joe pitchedthe next man out cleanly.
"That's the way to do it!"
"Joe, you're all right!"
"Now we'll begin to do something!"
Thus cried his teammates.
And from then on the Phillies were allowed but one more tally. Thiscould not be helped, for Joe was weakening, and could not control theball as well as at first. But the run came in as much through errors onthe part of his fellow players as from his own weakness.
Meanwhile the Cardinals struck a batting streak, and made good, bunchingtheir hits. The ending of the eighth inning saw the needed winning rungo up in the frame of the Cardinals, and then it was Joe's task to holdthe Phillies hitless in their half of the ninth.
How he did it he did not know afterward. His arm felt as though someonewere jabbing it with a knife. He gritted his teeth harder and harder,and stuck it out. But oh! what a relief it was when the umpire, as thethird batter finished at the plate, called:
"You're out!"
The Cardinals had won! Joe's work for the day was finished. But at whatcost only he knew. Pure grit had pulled him through.
"Say, did you pitch with that arm?" asked Boswell in surprise as he sawJoe under the shower in the clubhouse later.
"Well, I made a bluff at it," said Joe, grimly and gamely.
"Well, I'll be Charlie-horsed!" exclaimed the trainer. "Say, you won'tdo any more pitching for a week! I've got to take you in hand."
Of course the story of Joe's grit got out, and the papers made much ofhow he had pitched through nearly a full game, winning it, too, whichwas more, with a badly hurt arm.
"But don't you take any such chances as that again!" cried ManagerWatson, half fiercely, when he heard about it. "I can't have my pitchersrunning risks like that. Pitchers cost too much money!"
This was praise enough for Joe.
And so he had a much-needed rest. Under the care of Boswell the armhealed rapidly, though, for some time, Joe was not allowed to take partin any big games, for which he was sorry.
Whether it was the example of Joe's grit, or because they had improvedof late was not made manifest, but the Cardinals took three of the fourgames with the Phillies, which made Manager Watson gleeful.
"They called us tail-enders!" he exulted, "but if we don't give theGiants a rub before the end of the season I'll miss my guess!"
The Cardinals were on the move again. They went from city to city,playing the scheduled games, winning some and losing enough to keep themabout in fifth place. Joe saw much of life, of the good and bad sides.Many temptations came to him, as they do to all young fellows, whetherin the baseball game, or other business or pleasure. But Joe "passedthem up." Perhaps the memory of a certain girl helped him. Often itdoes.
The Cardinals came to New York, once more to do battle with theredoubtable Giants.
"But you won't get a game!" declared Manager McGraw to "Muggins" Watson.
"Won't we? I don't know about that. I'm going to spring my colt slabartist on you again."
"Who, Matson?"
"Um," said the manager of the Cardinals.
"Um," responded the manager of the Giants, laughing.
St. Louis did get one game of a double-header, and Joe, whose arm was inperfect trim again, pitched. It was while he was on the mound that acertain man, reputed to be a scout for the Giants, was observed to betaking a place where he could watch the young pitcher to advantage.
"Up to your old tricks; eh, Jack?" asked a man connected with themanagement of the Cardinals. "Who are you scouting for now?"
"Well, that little shortstop of yours looks pretty good to me," was thedrawling answer. "What you s'pose you'll be asking for him."
"He's not for sale. Now if you mentioned the centre fielder, Jack----"
"Nothing doing. I've got one I'll sell you cheap."
"I don't suppose you want to make an offer for Matson; do you?" askedthe Cardinal man with a slow wink.
"Oh, no, we've got all the pitchers we can use," the Giant scoutresponded quickly. It is thus that their kind endeavor to deceive oneanother.
But, as the game went on, it might have been observed that the Giantscout changed his position, where he could observe Joe in action fromanother angle.
"Didn't see anything of Shalleg since we struck Manhattan; did you,Joe?" asked Rad, as he and his chum, taking advantage of a rainy day inNew York, were paying a visit to the Museum of Natural History.
"No," replied Joe, pausing in front of a glass case containing animmense walrus. "I don't want to see him, either. I'm sure he planned todo me some harm, and I'm almost positive that some of his tools had todo with my sore arm. But I can't prove it."
"That's the trouble," admitted Rad. "Well, come on, I want to see thatmodel of the big whale. They say it's quite a sight."
The rain prevented games for three days, and the players were getting abit "stale" with nothing to do. Then the sun came out, the grounds driedup and the series was resumed. But the Cardinals were not very lucky.
Philadelphia was the next stopping place, and there, once again, theCardinals proved themselves the masters of the Quakers. They took threegames straight, and sweetened up their average wonderfully, being only agame and a half behind the fourth club.
"If we can only keep up the pace!" said the manager, wistfully. "Joe,are you going to help us do it?"
"I sure am!" exclaimed the young pitcher.
There was one more game to play with the Phillies. The evening before itwas scheduled, which wo
uld close their stay in the Quaker City, Joe leftthe hotel, and strolled down toward the Delaware River. He intended totake the ferry over to Camden, in New Jersey, for a friend of his motherlived there, and he had promised to call on her.
Joe did not notice that, as he left the hotel, he was closely followedby a man who walked and acted like Wessel. But the man wore a heavybeard, and Wessel, the young pitcher remembered was usuallysmooth-shaven.
But Joe did not notice. If he had perhaps he would have seen that thebeard was false, though unusually well adjusted.
Joe turned his steps toward the river front. It was a dark night, forthe sky was cloudy and it looked like rain.
Joe just missed one ferryboat, and, as there would be some little timebefore the other left, he strolled along the water front, looking atwhat few sights there were. Before he realized it, he had gone fartherthan he intended. He found himself in a rather lonely neighborhood, and,as he turned back a bearded man, who had been walking behind the youngpitcher for some time, stepped close to him.
"I beg your pardon," the man began, speaking as though he had a heavycold, "but could you direct me to the Reading Terminal?"
"Yes," said Joe, who had a good sense of direction, and had gotten the"lay of the land" pretty well fixed in his mind. "Let's see now--how Ican best direct you?"
He thought for a moment. By going a little farther away from the ferryhe could put the stranger on a thoroughfare that would be more directthan traveling back the way he had come.
"If you wouldn't mind walking along a little way," said the man eagerly."I'm a stranger here, and----"
"Oh, I'll go with you," offered Joe, good-naturedly. "I'm not in anyhurry."
Be careful, Joe! Be careful!
Baseball Joe in the Big League; or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles Page 25